Louis Vuitton.
Marc Newson’s most famous design is a chair. The Lockheed Lounge, to be exact, made in 1986 which bent aluminium into a curving, futuristic form so prescient that it became the most expensive functional design object ever sold by a living creator, auctioning for around $3.2 million in 2015. Thirty years on, his newest aluminium invention is considerably more portable, and considerably more practical. Newson has created the world’s first rivet-free aluminium suitcase for Louis Vuitton.
The ‘Horizon Aluminum’ marks ten years of one of luxury’s more productive design partnerships. Of everything Newson has created, from the Apple Watch to the first electric Ferrari to the twisting staircase in Karl Lagerfeld’s home, his work with Louis Vuitton has perhaps been the most sustained exercise in translating industrial design language into the vocabulary of travel. The original Horizon launched in 2016, built around the same rounded curves and clean silhouette that define Newson’s broader body of work. The aluminium version takes a decade’s worth of thinking and applies it to a material the house has a longer history with than most people realise. Louis Vuitton was making aluminium trunks for explorers in the late 19th century. Newson is the latest chapter in that particular story.
Louis Vuitton.
Louis Vuitton.
The engineering involved in making the Horizon Aluminum look as uncluttered as it does is, by the house’s own admission, considerably more demanding than the finished object suggests. The shell is shaped through a stamping and laser-cutting process that preserves the Horizon’s signature rounded curves while working in a material that does not naturally want to hold them. The Monogram motif embossed across the surface is not ornamental: it helps strengthen the shell by spreading stress evenly across the surface, turning one of the house’s oldest visual codes into a structural solution. The absence of rivets, which would ordinarily be the standard method of holding an aluminium shell together, required developing an ultra-thin frame system attached to the shell instead. A single-piece, full-depth three-dimensional mould with no folding or riveting is a first in luggage design.
The hinges presented a separate problem. Traditional external hinges were replaced by concealed internal mechanisms, integrated into the interior without taking up additional space. The telescopic handle is wider than standard, the wheels are enlarged and made from a material designed to absorb shocks and run without noise, and the interior lining is thermoformed to create a completely flat main compartment, maximising capacity in a way that most hard-shell luggage does not manage.
Louis Vuitton.
Louis Vuitton.
VVN or black leather covers the corners and handles, one of the few places on the case where the material softens. A leather luggage tag doubles as a bag hook, meanwhile a protective cover with openings for the wheels, top handle and trolley protects the case during storage. The companion Vanity Case follows the same design logic throughout: aluminium embossed with the Monogram, no rivets, an ultra-slim frame, concealed hinges and an ultra-slim TSA combination lock.
Aluminium dents, but Louis Vuitton has thought about this and framed it accordingly: the case is built to bear its marks as souvenirs rather than damage, which is either a very elegant piece of positioning or a genuinely useful way to think about a material that will, inevitably, show the evidence of wherever it has been. Given that the original Louis Vuitton trunks were designed for people crossing continents and oceans, a few airport scuffs seem relatively manageable.
The ‘Horizon Aluminum’ is available from June 12. Discover more here.
photography. courtesy of Louis Vuitton
words. Gennaro Costanzo
